By the time Bundy stood trial in Florida for the Chi Omega sorority homicides and the murder of Kimberly Leach, Kendall had broken contact. Carole Ann Boone stepped into the operational and emotional center of his defense.
Boone relocated from Washington to Florida, attended every court session, and frequently smuggled cash and contraband into detention facilities to assist him. During the 1980 penalty phase of the Leach trial in Orlando, Bundy used an obscure Florida legal statute to marry Boone in open court. While questioning her on the witness stand as his own co-counsel, Bundy asked Boone if she would marry him. When she replied affirmatively, he declared them legally wed in the presence of a presiding judge.
Boone gave birth to a daughter in October 1982, naming Bundy as the father despite strict prohibitions against conjugal visits on Florida's Death Row. For years, Boone served as his fiercest media advocate, conducting television interviews where she maintained his complete innocence. That alliance collapsed in the late 1980s when Bundy began confessing to multiple murders in exchange for execution stays, confirming details Boone had spent a decade publicly denying. She severed contact, changed her name, and retreated entirely from public view before his execution in January 1989.
